I don't think the US would go away even if the eastern seaboard was nothing but glassy craters and deadly microbes.

That being said, it's conceivable that some technological or ideological change could weaken the central government to the point that states would be let go, though it's hard to imagine something that drastic shaping up in as little as 9 years. I'm also not sure what change could happen which would break the federal government while leaving state governments intact.

Ok, though-- in a decade, something very odd could happen. I don't think a lot of people were predicting the dissolution of the USSR before it happened.

Meanwhile, sous vides don't seem to be a lot cheaper or more popular, but I didn't put as extreme a probability on that one.